News & Announcements 7/13/12

On today’s menu: a Pew Report on ebooks and library patrons; CLOCKSS Archive adds new publishers; a copyright ruling from the Canadian Supreme Court; IET adopts open access model; and the University Press of Florida has a new Deputy Director.

This post from ResourceShelf reports on this Pew Research Report that “Some 12% of Americans ages 16 and older who read e-books say they have borrowed an e-book from a library in the past year. Most e-book borrowers say libraries are very important to them and their families and they are heavy readers in all formats, including books they bought and books lent to them. E-book borrowers say they read an average (the mean number) of 29 books in the past year, compared with 23 books for readers who do not borrow e-books from a library. Perhaps more striking, the median (midpoint) figures for books reportedly read are 20 in the past year by e-book borrowers and 12 by non-borrowers.”

The new participants include: NRC Research Press, Manchester University Press, and Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon. All three publishers welcomed the opportunity to preserve their content with the CLOCKSS Archive. As Manchester University Press chief executive David Rodgers said “We are excited to be part of CLOCKSS. Our journals represent the best
of new research in the Humanities and Social Sciences and CLOCKSS
offers a suitably high-quality archive solution…”

“The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that photocopying material for student use does not infringe the country’s Copyright Act, reports CTV news. The ruling, one of five copyright decisions issued on Thursday by the court, means that colleges and universities stand to save millions of dollars in copyright fees…”

“The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is to become the first engineering, not-for-profit publisher to adopt an open access (OA) model with the launch of a comprehensive, online-only OA journal. OA options will also be added to its existing 26 journals. This is part of the IET’s continuing mission to make essential engineering intelligence available to the worldwide engineering community, benefitting researchers who contribute to or use this content.The IET, which has 150,000 members in 127 countries around the world and has published engineering journals since 1872, will be inviting submissions for its new OA megajournal from autumn 2012, with the online-only publication expected to launch in 2013…”

“As part of ongoing efforts to re-imagine the university press for the 21st century, the University Press of Florida (UPF) today announces an important change to its staffing and reporting structure. Effective July 1, 2012, Dennis Lloyd (formerly Assistant Director/Sales & Marketing Director) will assume new duties as Deputy Director. In his new role, Lloyd will continue to provide valuable leadership of the sales and marketing department. He will also oversee acquisitions operations and will lead the press in developing partnerships with state university system departments and other organizations for publishing and distribution services.

“Dennis has long been a key member of the management team in press-wide decisions and operations. He is an influential leader in the wider university press community. With proliferating changes to sustainable business models in university press publishing, we saw a clear need to add to our top management tier in order to broaden areas of investigation and expansion, while maintaining a steady hand on traditional book publishing, sales outlets, and the dissemination of scholarly information,” says UPF Director Meredith Morris-Babb.

Dennis Lloyd’s publishing career began as an acquisitions assistant at the University of Illinois Press. Formerly marketing and sales director at the University Press of Kentucky and the University of Pittsburgh Press, he has also worked at the University of Alabama Press. In 2006, he was hired by UPF as Sales & Marketing Director, and has served as chair of the digital publishing committee of the Association of American University Presses. He has given papers and appeared on panels at regional and national meetings of the American Musicological Society and the Association of American University Presses.

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